I Love Him Still
by kygirl101
Summary: While attending the funeral, Kaoru freaks out. KyouKao, TamaHaru, characterdeath. Done for 100 fairytales on LJ, prompt #086-three words at the grave.


Is that his mother? I'd never seen her before, but she's huddled next to Fuyumi, and...I think they have the same eyes...It's rather hard to tell when they are so bloodshot. And that must be Rei-san—that one's Akito-san...They look like him. Do any of the Ootori's take after their mother?

I look away, unable to stomach the false grief I see in the male Ootoris' eyes in such sharp contrast to the raw, tired, and half-dead quality of the females'.

Haruhi is crying, her face set in stone as hot tears running down her face. Somehow, she looks small between Hikaru and Mori-senpai, who both have watery, glazed looking eyes. Hunny-senpai is on the other side of his cousin, clinging to the older man's arm as if it were his life-line and hiccupping softly in the back of the auditorium.

Tamaki and I sit up front, closer to the casket than we are our wife and twin, staring blankly at the man delivering passage after passage about what a great man Kyouya was without having any _real_ idea as to what he was saying. I marvel at how emotionlessly this stranger tells the story of his life, and with a sort of sick fascination, I wonder what would happen if one of his _true_ friends (the people who knew him best) were to give this eulogy. They wouldn't be talking about his success in school.

I miss him—he hasn't even been gone a week, and I already feel that my life has stretched on for years more than it should without him. I miss him in every sense of the word: as a friend, a companion, an accomplice, a listener, a Host, a mother, a lover. I miss him, and I would cry—hard—for the loss of refracted light off of glasses, clean and fresh cologne and someone who knew me better than I knew myself, if I wasn't already cried out.

Everything took extra effort, even such trivial things as reflexes, and standing when the man invites us all to stand and make a line if we wish to pay our last respects to the 'deceased'. I do so, noticed that the only time he addressed Kyouya by name had been when he had said _'we gather here to commemorate the life of...'_

Tamaki and I hang back, allowing those more socially and financially attached to the Ootori family to move ahead of us to whisper meaningless goodbyes into the open coffin. I don't feel people brush past me, allowing their presence to jostle me like an unstable drunk. Then I hear distinctive footsteps and breaths, somehow picked out over the murmurings of condolences that are just as much gossip as they are sympathetic.

Hikaru is next to me, holding my hand tightly in a vain attempt of reassurance as Haruhi moves into Tamaki, burying her face in his shoulder as pregnancy hormones got the better of her emotions and she began sobbing loudly, which only lead to Hunny-senpai wailing as Mori-senpai held him. And then Tamaki was crying, too, silently onto the top of his wives head, and I notice a tear in Mori-senpai's eye slowly roll into his ear as he looks up. I know Hikaru is, too, even before I look at my twin, and somehow, being the only dry eyes among the six of us that should have been seven made me feel guilty.

Somehow, through the tears and crying and sobs and emotional hysterics, we began to move toward the podium, where just the rim of glasses so familiar that I could draw from memory peaek out from above the lip of the wooden box. Haruhi and Tamaki are in front of me, and I can hear him whispering reassurances into her ear that I wished would work for all of us—any of us, really.

She goes first, clutching the rim of the coffin until her knuckles turned white and gazing at his face—_did he look the same?_ I wonder—before lowering her mouth to his head and whispering something inaudible.

Tamaki is next, looking as if he wanted to touch Kyouya's face or chest or hair just once more. His eyes were dripping, and mouth open for several moments before actual words came out. "We...we were going to—to...we were going to name Kaoru godfather after you rejected us...Figured that you couldn't wiggle out of it that way, Mother." And here he sniffed, displaying his reluctance to say whatever he was about to say, and I was glad that the rest of the funeral attendance had moved onto the morbid reception. "I guess...I g-guess...you managed to, anyway...But...I'll never forget you, Kyouya—there's no way in hell that I will ever be able to forget my best friend, and I just wanted to...to thank you..."

Tamaki was bordering on hysteria, a suit most unbefitting on him, but one befitting this occasion. To mourn was to feel pain, to feel pain was to be injured, and to be injured was to recover. Kyouya would have wanted us to mourn him, to get over it eventually, but denial seemed more appropriate. Haruhi placed a gentle hand on his arm, and drew him back behind myself and Hikaru to wait.

Hunny-senpai moved forward next, Mori-senpai a step behind him, He was clinging to Usa-chan, the bunny toy I had not seen him with for over two years. He held the stuffy up, gazing into the button eyes before lowering his favorite item into the box and closing his eyes. "Cake would rot, Kyou-chan...I...I want you to have my bun-bun so...Take good care of him, okay?" I felt that the small blond, who had grown, but not much, was talking to the bunny, not the Ootori.

Mori-senpai's turn. "Thank you, Kyouya..." he said in an incredibly low voice, deepened by sadness. "You were a good, reasonable boy. And an even better man."

It was short and sweet, and sent Haruhi into a fresh wave of sobs. It was Hikaru's turn next.

He was quiet, staring and wiping the corners of his eyes and sniffing resolutely. "I swore I'd kill you," he murmured, and I remembered that explosive time when my twin had walked in on us in late high school. "But...you were good to him—to us—to Tono, and everyone. I—I think it was thanks to you that the Host Club stayed together...Mother...And I'm...glad that you were such an objective third party and...for being my friend..."

Slowly, I moved forward, watching with heart palpitations as a peaceful, slackened face I knew came into full view. My breath caught; he could be sleeping; only...this time, I don't think he'd snap at me if I woke him. If I could wake him. And yet, even knowing that I couldn't, I was unable to bring myself to say goodbye or even speak to him as if he wouldn't talk back to me. Taking a shaky breath, I began.

"You know what, Kyouya?" I asked. "I was going to ask you if we wanted to take on each other's names...I thought they had certain rings to it, you know: Ootori Kaoru and Hitachiin Kyouya...It was just a silly thought." Somewhere from within my throat, a watery chuckle gurgled past my lips before I could swallow it (and the lump in my throat) back.

"I, uh...I wanted to redo our bedroom...You knew. It was my favorite room in the house, but I hated the way it was set up...You know I was in there, on the bed, when I got the call from the hospital? I...I don't think I can ever sleep in there again...it smells like you," I confessed. I hadn't counted on how hard this was going to be, but now that I had started, I couldn't stop.

"I...I don't think I could ever tell you what I would give to have you back right now. It was perfect when you were with me, the dynamic...Everyone was happy, especially you and me. I...I wish I hadn't let you go to that conference or that I had...had _known_ about the gunman..." My eyes flicked down to his chest, covered so nicely by a black tuxedo, but I knew the truth beneath it—a ragged hole, just above his heart. "I...wish there was something I could have done."

The red rose in the pocket of his jacket swam, and the first tear drop fell, leaving my vision with stunning clarity as I began to shake. I was loosing it, going into hysterics, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. My hand flew off of the siding of the coffin and to his face, holding cold and stiff cheeks as tears I didn't know I had rolled down my face and spotted on Kyouya's front. I lowered my nose to his, brushing in the slightest Eskimo kiss as my lips parted, and spit sticking to the inside of my mouth like glue as I sobbed. A raw, animalistic sound permeated the room, and in a flash, I understood it had come from me, and that my voice had risen considerably.

"How could you," I demanded, sounding slightly demented. My hands moved to the front of his cloths and I tried to shake him, but the...dead weight was too much for me. "How could you!!!"

And then there were hands on me. Hikaru reached around to pull my arms from a body I had mapped with my fingers so many times before. I fought against him, attempting to wrench from his grasp as he looped his arms through my elbows and pulled them above my head. Tamaki moved around in front of my, two hands on my chest as he implored me to calm down and breath.

"How _could_ you!?!?!" I imagined my face looked ruddy and red; it felt heavy and hot, but the rest of my body was free, enjoying the energy I was spending as I lashed out at Tamaki with my legs and pulled on Hikaru, trying to drag him back to the casket.

"K-Kaoru, s-stop! Uh, hold him!" I heard Hikaru demand behind me, and I fought harder.

Then there were Mori-senpai's arms around my waist, and he sucsessed where the other two had failed. Try as I might, kick and scream and thrash; I achieved nothing more than accidentally hitting him in the nose when I jerked my head back.

"Let me go!! Let me go!! How could you, Ootori Kyouya!?!?" And my voice broke. "How could you fucking leave me!?!"

We were making out way down the isle between sets of chairs, Haruhi and Hunny-senpai lingering by the coffin and correcting the picture (with a fake smile) and flower wreath I had upset before brushing Kyouya down and trotting after us. I don't remember, nor understand, what I shouted while being dragged, but my voice echoed in an eerie way tat made me feel more alone than I really was.

-

It was a quiet bar, with only two completely-drunk regular slumped in chairs and a pretty barmaid clearing off the tables. Quiet, wavering music drawled from the out-of-date speakers, but the six inhabitants of the farthest booth back could barely hear it, nor did they really care to listen.

It was silent around the polished wooden table, a soda-water and five cups of sake clustered in the middle, untouched, And a pair of spectacles, stolen, refracting the light and rightfully belonging to none at the table, rested, almost as if there were grey orbs behind the lenses and eyes staring at them. Each stared back.

And then, with a shaky breath, Haruhi extended a hand and picked up the glasses by the bridge between the lenses. She held them to her chest, and one hand absently rubbed her swollen abdomen, cooing to her unborn child. "Kyouya...Little...Kyouya-kun."

Tamaki took them next, running a finger over the silver frames. "I was lucky to know such a tolerant friend who put up with my notion of a Host Club...Although I don't think he'd approve of my next schemes."

Hunny held them next, wiping the lenses on his shirt. "Kyou-chan really did like sweet things...Just not foods."

Mori held them next, folding the legs behind the lenses. 'We never realized how lucky we were to have him."

And then it was Hikaru's turn, and he faltered. "I...I wish that...I could take some things back...But not most of it."

And then it was Kaoru's turn, and he took the glasses, turning them over and over in his hands. They should be thrown off a bridge or buried or burned until they were nothing but liquid silver. But...that didn't fit. And he, casually, slipped them into his lap, finger closed and eyes clearly stating 'they're mine', which no one disputed.

Without saying anything, the younger of the Hitachiin twins raised his glass, anaction copied five times around the table, and then brought the cup to his lips and drank, wishing away his sorrows and back the departed soul that was not with them but felt as if it should be.

And, when the chalice had been replaced on the table, he looked down, chewing his lip where Ootori Kyouya had last kissed and exhaled in semi-calmness. "I...love him."_ Still_, he should add. _Still_, he could add. _Still_, but he didn't.


End file.
